Desperado
by Coco-Minu
Summary: She demolishes the heartbreak hotel; builds the "get over it" B&B. Oneshot - DracoxLuna, RolfxLuna.


Summary: _She demolishes the heartbreak hotel; builds the "get over it" B&B._

Note: For Min. Sometimes it's harder being the one left behind.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Warning(s): Strong bad language, angst.

* * *

><p><strong>Desperado<strong>

* * *

><p><em>when the stars are the only thing we share<em>

* * *

><p>Every journey starts with a sad story.<p>

Doubtless, his family deserve this; their home torn into a trainwreck, skin on their blackened arms burning because it's only ever the people who win whose point of view is classed as good, classed as necessary for survival. When his mother gently weeps, when his father becomes only an impression of the man he'd thought he was, he takes it upon himself to leave. At eighteen years old, Draco becomes a fugitive in an American desert wasteland.

He doesn't know it then, but it's the most honest decision he'll ever make.

* * *

><p>Although he's seen Luna hundreds of times, it's only this time it clicks:<p>

"Of all the gin joints in all the world."

Girl, Draco thinks, many men will fall in love with you. They will dismiss your flaws as improper, your mother's blood filtered between your fingers will be nothing more than a couple of year old stains. But her legs trap him like a wounded animal, and the wand tip at his forehead is just that. She'd got out from behind the caged bars and even now she was reclaiming every little bit of freedom he'd taken from her. He'd come stumbling around now by sheer coincidence, only to find nothing but a desert and wild eyes.

"I just tried to kill you. Aren't you scared?"

Somewhere outside, animals are tearing each other to pieces. It is the natural order of the world. Yet she is hesitant. She has the same soft look as all these annoying American women with yee-haw accents, the women who think they understand pain when they've lived in this ugly place their entire lives and sustained themselves on food taken from foreign children. It's the _I-will-make-beauty-from-ruin_ look, the complete bullcrap of any fake modern love.

"If you ever meant to kill, you'd be faster."

At this he swears furiously, raw fury tearing from his throat and all she does is sit there as he goads her into ending it. Holy shit, a million different stars could shatter and she'd find something pretty in the storm. And he's angry because she sits there, still on him, still with that God awful look on her stupid face like every possible injury is disconnected to her. Like he no longer has an anchor in reality. His life strung out until he forgets he is running.

"I'll blow your fucking brains out."

He tells her, still with his back against the dirty floor. Honestly, he should've had something better to say; because he hadn't known it'd be her to own this run down little shack of a hotel in the middle of the desert and he'd thought killing a muggle would be easy at this point. Just bend their bodies until they snapped. His face burns, red and shamed. He is being peeled apart, dissected by her silence. And she's right, she's completely right; and he hates her for it.

"You owe me."

She says quietly. Oh, it's a dirty trick; he owes her nothing, she got herself locked in his basement. But she still hasn't sounded an alarm. And so he says nothing. This girl has always been someone he has disliked. She free floats, carefree. He blinks and finds the world unbelievably changed even from that few milliseconds his eyes were closed to it. If he could, he'd punch himself awake, back to six months ago when he'd lost the war. He sneers, but when she moves and turns her back to him, he doesn't dare raise his weapon again.

Later that night she throws a blanket over his head and tells him he can stay, if he'd like.

* * *

><p>Draco thinks he is drowning.<p>

For the first night and many more, he thinks he screams in his sleep because Luna asks who he really is, and says his name until it sounds wrong. Light and beautiful and spilling over her teeth to escape. She says his name like he's not a Malfoy. Like for once, he's just Draco; and Draco is something worth having. Her fingers hover and tremble to touch him when he flinches at this and then he remembers he is always worthless. He turns away. She's too stupid, he thinks. Taking in someone who'd sit and watch the world burn if it meant he'd survive unharmed. Coward.

Unknown to everyone – the world needs more people like her in it.

* * *

><p>Until her, he thinks that he is the only one suffering.<p>

"Shouldn't you be back home celebrating?"

He asks between mouthfuls of her self-proclaimed famous sunny side up eggs. That day she is wearing a Stetson, pulled tight down on her head because she likes those and what she calls hombre hats. She explained once that it was just in case someone asked her what side she was on, and Ravenclaw needed a new diadem anyway. He doesn't answer that, mostly because he doesn't understand; and mostly he doesn't think that if he did he wouldn't want to give her an answer anyway. She slops bacon lazily on to his plate before answering.

"Shouldn't you be with your mother? She loves you very much, Draco."

He chokes, not on the bacon but on supressed tears. But he won't cry, mostly because he's forgotten how. Out here, he's got time to sit and stew; time to learn to hate himself all over again. Mostly he'd left because of the men with the shiny copper buttons banging at the door to check they were still there, because he didn't know anybody anymore. Because that's the stigma of having the dark mark burnt into your arm, not that she'd fucking get it. His face flushes red with embarrassed anger.

"Don't talk about things you don't understand."

He snaps, eyes combing over every inch of her back in the dark. He wonders if she knows that she can't cook for hell, or that if he drew his wand now and hit her in the spine she wouldn't live to see the four in the morning sun she waited up for every month. But he's thought the exact same thing every Monday and Wednesday of the past two weeks, and still he expects his morning tea when he's done thinking of ways to bump her off slowly.

"So we won. But what about the people who died? What about the people who left behind? The history books will give our point of view, but they won't talk about everyone; they won't talk about me and Neville and heartbreak and -"

She stops like she's just remembered who she's talking to; like she's remembered she's not talking to herself in the comfort of her room. But she does know what she's on about and part of that makes him sick. He'd never loved the girls he'd been told were suitable by his father, they were always neat and mean; they were cruel to the bone. But Luna was golden; her face was smiling on billboards all over Britain as if to say life was good, that it was just the losers who were troubled; a reminder that things were going to be alright. Now his throat sticks awkwardly while she shakes over the frying pan where she's started to make herself breakfast, and five minutes later she's gone out to sit among the miles of sand surrounding them like it'll make a difference.

It's then that he has an epiphany: someone will always be worse off than him.

* * *

><p>He tells Luna he's sorry, in his own way.<p>

She stands like a headless chicken, swaying pell-mell side to side like shocks setting in then laughs; not cruelly but she finds it funny that he'd ever apologise for anything even if it was half assed because he was so damn up himself all the time. For once, he tries not to take offence because he knows she doesn't mean it. Fails at this miserably and ends up with an even more shamed face. Still. She's just a stupid kid, but she's a stupid kid who sees right through everyone.

He thinks she knew then that he'd love her for it.

* * *

><p>After a month, he wonders what it's like to be in love.<p>

"What does it feel like?"

He asks as they sit on the veranda in wicker chairs like gossiping old women, her with her knees drawn up to her chin and him bow legged and sprawled across it like it had the space to accommodate such a feat. They are watching the sand and dust balls idly in the evening sun, a few too many bottles of firewhiskey between them and she laughs at this. Her face lights up like sunshine, the picture of summer in her cotton shirt and pinstripe shorts,

"Like it's ok."

Oh, he thinks, and doesn't get it. Like suicide? He hazards a guess to his father being on suicide watch by now; the Azkaban guards keeping an eye out every Tuesday and Thursday just in case they'd moved him out there already. Is it a rope, is it alcohol, he'd guess it would change every week. But now his brain is addled. He's never considered himself a featherweight, but a few bottles down and she's already looking prettier than she'll ever really be in this evening sun.

"Things won't be ok for a long time, Lovegood."

He says. Because they won't be, because he's still on the God damn run in the most obvious place to come looking for him; because he can't call her Luna. That'd make her a friend, and he's never had a friend he hasn't had to pay for. Especially one with legs like that. She was the sort of girl who shone like a thousand diamonds and he'd never touch something like that.

"We can hope."

He preferred to sit and bitterly hate her, even if she wasn't inherently a bad person. That made it easier to kill her, because he still hadn't given up on that thought. If he wanted to be secure out here, she had to die. It was only a matter of time, really. It'd be a shame, because she'd educated him a lot as to human nature beyond gold as motivation, but that was the natural order of things as a Death Eater. Murder or be murdered. Then she turns on him with soft eyes and it stops so easily. He's getting too gentle, in his young years of seeing too much.

"You actually listen to the shit that Potter comes out with. I'm impressed."

He bites, sarcastic and cruel because he needs to be. She isn't hurt by it, doesn't comment on the offence to Harry although she trusts that git more than anything; just hands him another bottle she's popped the lid off and drunk from because she doesn't like unnecessary conflict in the home. Idiot. Her shoulders are getting burnt every so often out here because she doesn't want to put on sun cream and upset some of her made up creatures. She watches as he gulps another mouthful down and laughs. He eyes her warily, her face glittering with drunken stupor.

"You know, sharing spit means we've indirectly kissed."

He glares at her, goes one-handed to find the wand he keeps in his back pocket to show her exactly how funny he thinks she is. But it's tucked behind her ear, like that's where it belongs; and he doesn't even know how it got there. Sneaky bitch.

"Lovegood, are you trying to seduce me?"

She drops her arm off the side of her chair and pushes her fingers lazily against his. And then he gets it, that feeling of being ok. Like the whole world was going to fall down around them and it wouldn't matter because right then in that moment he was with her. Horrified, he quickly jolts away from the contact, drops his hand in his lap like she'd spread an infection to him. She sniggers at this like it's nothing, and still; he can't decide what she is, exactly. Nobody should be happy to have people recoil from them. He would know.

"But of course, Draco. Don't you think sunsets are a tad too cliché to be really romantic though?"

He knows she's joking in her typical offbeat way, or at least she's trying to change the subject and succeeding. The thing is, he should hate this girl; and he does a damn good job of convincing himself that he wants her dead simply because anyone would assume he should. But you can't kill a girl who never really existed to begin with. Being around her is like being around an imaginary friend; the minute you reach out to touch her, you find that she might as well be a red striped unicorn because she isn't really listening. She's always dreaming. Even now, he's not sure if that irritates him or scares him.

"I'll never even like you, darling."

It's a bald-faced lie and her grin says they both know it.

* * *

><p>One day they go to the gas station ten miles out and steal a DeLorean.<p>

Maybe it's because he's too uptight to use muggle money and she doesn't understand how their currency works just yet, and when she does know later that he'd lied when he'd said they could just take it there's hell to pay instead – _she's a girl with more morals than the entire court combined_ – but for the moment he'd enjoyed it. That was, until he realised something. Firstly, she knew how to drive a muggle car; and secondly, she was no better than him. Driving was her running.

Until then, her words were the only God he needed; and he feels like fool for believing.

* * *

><p>She demolishes the heartbreak hotel; builds the "get over it" B&amp;B.<p>

"You know, you're a lot prettier in real life than you were on the billboards."

Finally, she has her first guest. Or second. Draco doesn't know where he's counted in the grand scheme of things, seeing as he's more or less living here out of a tattered old suitcase and not paying for her to house him. In fact, he came here rather by sheer coincidence; a circumstance he supposes the odd man at the counter does not share.

"Draco would disagree."

She answers without so much as a second thought. To his detriment, this strange man-boy-thing does not quite seem to know who he is; and he's supposedly a dangerous fugitive, something which Luna herself starkly denies. But even if he had known, he would still dislike this kid on instinct. He's got the same spacey look as her, but he's sharp with it like a knife. Flirty. Dangerous. Exactly the sort of guy he knew she'd take a shine to.

"Oh, I was wondering where Mr. Malfoy had gone."

He says conversationally. So he does know him. He rolls his eyes as he listens in on their conversation from the next room. It's the sort of response he'd expect from her. He stands up and strolls in behind her like it's nothing; then finally he meets this man face to face. He has the same sharp features as Draco, with a long thin nose and sculpted cheeks. But he is wild, with an unruly mop of dark brown hair and stubble across tanned skin that looks rough and uneven; worn from manual labour that he'd never even dream of doing. He automatically hates him.

"Scared that I'll kill you?"

He sneers. The man smiles in that off, not quite there way that only Luna ever seemed to manage before like you can be born with a look like that and sticks out a hand to shake which Draco does not return. Luna is not pretty. She has freckles on her back that he could play dot-to-dot with and make constellations from, she burns easily, her hair is always caked in mud from who knows where and gritty with sand. And even now he refuses to tell her that when she smiles, it's like the sun has come out to bless him because he will not find her attractive if it's the last thing he does on this planet.

"You wouldn't do that in front of a lady. I'm Rolf, Rolf Scamander."

He says. Even so, he returns the proffered hand. The way Luna's face lights up at this information does not please Draco in the slightest. Scamander. Creatures? Monsters? Those damn made up things she was always on about. He'd always hated animals. Maybe even more than he hated both of them right now for being so damn alike.

"Oh, this is lovely Draco; until you spoke to each other I thought Rolf here was my imaginary friend."

Luna interrupts before he can very much prove the idiot wrong. She's not a lady and he'd slaughter the pair of them if he got the chance. Though it's so typically like her to say something like that; he can't even despise her for it. He bites back the ugly comments, stashes them and crams them down his own throat for when he kills this man. He can imagine the headline now, double murder in American desert. This Rolf and Luna, he face down and her face up clinging to each other's hands like it'd protect them. He smiles. Rolf thinks it's friendly. If only he knew how utterly wrong he was.

"If only."

He mentally rechristens this desert hotel she's built as shitty out of spite too.

* * *

><p>As it turns out, Rolf leaves after a week.<p>

Watching the back of him as he walks out into the desert again with the sun beating down on his weathered skin is a personal victory. He may not have been the one to make him leave, in fact, he has gone through choice; but even so he basks in the glory of his shadow. Luna, of course, is sad to see him go. She liked having breakfast made for her, even if she was the one supposedly running this place; and she'd liked that he called her beautiful at least six times a day. Creep. He didn't like how he'd taken one look at Draco then said he was a teenager in love, either.

There was nothing to love out here except her.

* * *

><p>Still, Rolf sends her letters. She receives most of them.<p>

"I don't like him."

He tells her one night, sitting in front of the fireplace. She doesn't know then that he's been hiding the letters where Rolf tells her where he was, or how even the wonders of that place didn't match her loveliness. Or at least he hopes she doesn't. Desert nights can be cold out here, and the silence around them makes him more open to actually talking to her than normal. He doesn't like how on these nights she insists on sharing gloves and scarves with him either. The feeling of her skin on his terrifies him, because it's a reminder that she's a blood traitor and of all the people he could have seen out here by sheer coincidence it had to be her.

"He's a nice person."

She says, reluctant to say much about it. But her cheeks are pink, and she draws her long deer-like legs up and tucks her knees under her chin something beautiful like a smitten little girl anyway. His mouth goes dry, and he licks his lips. Even now she can't meet his eyes. She looks blank, staring wide eyed into the fire in front of them like it'll flicker and die just for her. Sometimes, he thinks he would; but he's not romantically inclined by nature and he wouldn't dare let her think she had any hold over him. He was too different to her. He'd kill, she'd kiss.

"That's why I don't trust him. Nice people don't really exist. Even your beloved Potter can be an arsehole at times."

She turns to stare at him, discomforted. Her hair is wild and flickering gold under the firelight, her eyes mottled with flecks of a darker grey from it; and it's like she's been scattered all over with starlight. But he cannot touch her, or tell her this, even now when all he wants to do is tell her he's so damn sorry for everything he's ever done. He'll always be a coward, and cowards only look out for themselves. She's just a minor detail in the margins of his life.

"People aren't all bad, Draco. Not even you."

She's wrong. They'd buried his aunt fresh in the grave, afraid she'd come back even then. Not even her husband had been unhappy to see her go. He wants to see the worst in himself as well. But still, her mitten covered fingers slip out of the gloves and disconnect from his, land on the fabric of his shirt that covers his blackened arm.

"I'm a death eater, love. Things haven't changed."

And he kisses her. She tastes of the summer heat, scorching beneath his touch and he loves her for; but then he remembers who is. He pulls away, disgusted with himself for ever thinking he could do that, ever thinking she was actually good enough for him. She'll never have the good looks or brains a Malfoy needs, or clean enough blood. She's just ruining his mind lately. Making him forget who he is. And so he disconnects himself, untangles himself from the wool and skulks away from her shocked face because the fact she looked like that will haunt him for the rest of the night already.

Still he rips up the rest of the letters for that week, and leaves them strewn in the sand for miles.

* * *

><p>He goes out into the desert as a pilgrim when she doesn't receive letter number sixteen.<p>

He buries it in the dunes. Luna had a habit of only believing in things that didn't have any real proof. When he'd asked her why she believed in God then, she'd laughed and said you could see him everywhere and not just told him the truth straight out that she didn't. He'd found out three days later and felt sick. He was supposed to be the liar out of the pair of them. Rolf wasn't even supposed to exist. He's just a smear on the end of their lives.

He won't be the one that doesn't fit. Albeit ramshackle, this is his home – where she is.

* * *

><p>She begins to notice something missing.<p>

"I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've lost something very important."

She tells him complacently, chewing her bottom lip something awful. Luna likes to make lists. Post it notes are her favourite, stuck here and there only to turn up six months later in a pile of dust with something nostalgic written on it. The last one had been from six months ago, saying in angry capitals 'grow up.' He hadn't told her he found it, just tucked it in the back pocket of his rolled up to the knees beige corduroy pants that chafed in the heat. All she seems to be doing lately is growing up too fast and he hates it more than anything.

"Somebody to love."

A light seems to flicker on in her brain when he says this, the borrowed kind that makes him worry because he hasn't watched his mouth and she's a thinker. It's a joke she doesn't understand. She analyses everything he ever does like it's been well rehearsed and she knows all the answers already to what he's about to tell her. That scares him a little bit, or more than he's willing to admit at least. She runs her finger around the rim of her glass of lemonade.

"Yes, or maybe pudding. I do like pudding."

She says airily even though it's a barefaced lie. She's so damn lonely even though he's here. And that night, like the first night in an apartment all by herself, she sits and cries to her soul's content. So even though he hates the girl, and he knows he's never been one to like attention in misery, he crawls into her bed and curls against her body just to hold her. He reasons that she's not allowed to be as miserable as he is because she's his coping mechanism. She's his reason for existence.

He buries his face in her tangled hair because half the time she still doesn't notice him.

* * *

><p>He wakes up and realises she terrifies him.<p>

This tiny girl with the elf ears and wicked grin isn't afraid to die. This is the reason she is sleeping right now and doesn't bother staying awake around him is because she doesn't think his hands will be around her neck and choking her into a less pretty slumber. And if he kills her, she doesn't care on the principal that she doesn't have anyone that needs her anymore. She's done her part and she doesn't know how much Rolf loves her, doesn't know how much he loves her –

At nearly nineteen years of age, Draco is certain that he is in love.

* * *

><p>She makes her own light, her own beauty using her imagination.<p>

"You're all crooked."

She tells him when he wakes up to her turned around and staring wide eyed at him. She hasn't bothered to move his arm that's still draped over her bird bone hips, a connection that makes him like human jewellery. He does not understand this girl, who thinks him something harmless. Any touch between them connects her to his violence, to every piece of harm he has caused, to everything he has ever done; and she waits for him to wake up because she thinks a boy like him isn't really all that bad. He blinks.

"I'm just in my sleeping position."

He tells her, too tired to bother; this morning she is as strange as usual. He does not find this lack of common sense attractive in the slightest. She reaches out to touch him but doesn't make the link. He is always the one to instigate this because she understands that he does not want the connection. For the first time since he has known her, he reaches out his fingertips to meet hers, indulges her for a moment like he'd indulge a rotten child.

"That isn't what I meant."

She means he has changed. He rolls the word on his tongue, decides it's ugly. He doesn't change. Boys like Draco, cowards with money and not a lot of sense or decency to accept loss don't ever change. Not really. They stay as they are, full of empty headed dreams that they know they can't follow and keep their precious remnants of glory stashed away. He'll never have the guts to do anything half as glorious as she will, and even now as they lie with no distance between them he knows that this will set them apart. He begrudges her that one thing only for a moment.

"I've told you before, things never change."

Luna moves her hands to his cheeks, and for once he doesn't flinch away. His father is still a hard man, quick with a cane when the servants fuck up; and though he never raised so much as a finger to his son, Draco is still wary. She is telling him people are always changing, that they never stop for a second but he won't let her know that he understands. He closes his eyes to her so he won't see her frown when he sighs. She's still just a child in his eyes.

"You already have."

She tells him, and kisses him on the forehead because she'll always see him in the same way; he is a spoilt, unwavering child afraid to ever admit the truth. He starts and grabs a single hand from his face, traces it over his arm where the skin is black and turned to the ceiling. It's a stark thing against his white skin, an ugly scar that reminds him that they are too different. Yet she doesn't break the contact, isn't scared of the burn. If he thinks about it, she's never been afraid to be the complete opposite of everyone else. To her, being terrified of him wasn't second nature.

"That mark will never leave me, Lovegood."

He uses her second name because he knows she hates it when he acts like he is separate to her, like they haven't shared their lives at all. He knows this is what makes her unhappy, not the mark. Never the mark. She sees him as being as young and foolish as her, the girl with the multi-hem pleated skirts and wide brim hats when he's the boy wearing black in the sunshine to remind himself that he is grieving, that he will kill so many and she'll just be the first. The irony is that before her, he'd forgotten how to live. He was just existing.

"You were young. You are young. It means nothing."

Luna tells him, lips still against his forehead. He clasps at her back and tips his head up, catches her lips for a second as a warning. But this time she is not shocked, he is not afraid to admit this time that he means it. This time, she doesn't let him stop; for when he pulls away she claims him again. Her hands clutch his burnt skin, her tongue explores his neck like it's a newfound foreign country and she is Columbus or – oh God. His hands are in her hair and she's never pretty except when she's smiling for him. The distance between them means nothing. Not anymore, or at least not now.

For her, he begins to forgive himself.

* * *

><p>She tells him she's going travelling.<p>

It's with Rolf-what's-his-face who finally clocked on that the letters were intercepted, but he doesn't care. She wears a ring with a chunk of glass in that he's bought her on a silver chain around her neck, something unconventional that she found pretty one day when they hitch hiked sixty miles into town. It's not anything like an engagement ring, and he doesn't ever expect it to be. Young love is always foolish, and he knows in a few years she will leave him anyway for someone who won't make her a social pariah again; but he loves her for this time when she is his. While they're out here in this big wide world, nobody can judge them, judge him; and so he is free to love her. So he kisses her on the head, kisses her on the cheek and lips because he'll miss her like hell. And until she comes back he stays there, and counts the stars because he knows somewhere she's looking at the same sky.

Draco no longer hates looking at the world knowing she's in it.

* * *

><p>Six months later, she comes back.<p>

"What took you so long?"

He asks when she walks out of the desert with a broomstick instead of a driving along in a muggle car, slightly more tanned than when she left - _she was right, people do change_ – and all she does is smile like a sunbeam. But as long as she's still wearing that silly ring on a silver chain, still has the same stupid all-knowing eyes its good enough for him.

"I got lost, then I remembered – I know you, and you are beautiful, Draco Malfoy."

She tells him, kicking off chunky wedged flip flops under the chair next to his that he'd never moved. And now, though his fingers still itch to raise his wand it isn't for ugly reasons like blowing her brains all over the walls. She's been right all along. People change quicker than the eye can notice. He'll always be a coward, sure, he'll always be a weak man; but for now she thinks he is gorgeous, and so he's more stunning than he'll ever be. He smiles ruefully, but he can't manage spite all the same.

"Welcome home."

Draco forgets every sad story he's ever lived.

* * *

><p>Because things doesn't always end sadly. Even now. Not by miles.<p>

Tracks:

_I Know I'm Why the Romance Failed_, Low-End Project

_U.N.I_, Ed Sheeran

_Atlas Hands_, Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

Constructive criticism & reviews appreciated. c:


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